The answers given by several people in this article are not nearly dismissive enough as I'd like them to be...
Could Saudi Arabia’s PIF enter college football? I asked ADs for their thoughts
By David Ubben
Jun 29, 2023
Could the Saudis crash college football?
Initially, it was just a thought rattling around in my brain. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had just turned golf upside down after what is being generously referred to as a merger but is more aptly described as a forced takeover ripped from an episode of “Succession.”
The PIF has already employed its seemingly bottomless resources to bring Cristiano Ronaldo to its national soccer league for $220 million a season. Despite Premier League protestations, it took over Newcastle United to become the British team’s majority owner.
It’s hosted nine WWE events on Saudi soil, as well as Formula 1 racing events.
But I wondered: Wouldn’t it be cheaper to gain far more influence in the world of college football? What if the Saudis wanted to become college football’s newest super booster and turbocharged a program with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to pay players through a collective and/or fund facility upgrades?
To me, it seems like an uncomfortable, unprincipled next step for both the PIF and college football, but unfortunately, an obvious next step for both, too.
The Athletic granted anonymity to four athletic directors so they could speak freely on the subject, and each of them laughed when the question was posed. Mostly nervous laughter.
“Oh, goodness,” said athletic director No. 1 before a short pause to ponder the question.
Athletic directors live in the world of athletic funding. Hiring coaches earns them plaudits from fans, but fundraising and balancing budgets are the biggest parts of their job, so they seemed like the best option to answer the question.
I also called two industry experts who consult with schools to aid their navigation of the ever-changing landscape of name, image and likeness for their takes.
“I’d say close to 50 percent of schools and athletic department leaders would navigate their way to yes,” industry source No. 1 said. “If you’d asked me before the LIV/PGA Tour came together, I would have said less than 10 percent. Because even the most aggressive and thoughtful athletic directors, everyone is afraid to go first when it comes to the PIF and their involvement in American sports. And the PGA just went first.”
Any institution accepting money from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s government would absorb an avalanche of immediate, deserved criticism. A CIA report released in 2021 concluded that bin Salman approved the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The nation executed 81 men in one day in 2022 amid reports that few if any of the victims received a fair trial. There are severe restrictions on women’s rights and freedom of speech and homosexuality is illegal.
An FBI report declassified in 2021 pointed to the Saudi government as complicit in helping fund the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington D.C.
“You know in some ways better than we do how much we will rationalize and twist to find a reason why something is OK because we want it to be OK,” athletic director No. 2 said.
Both industry sources saw a marriage between the Saudis and college football as something that could come to the sport soon. At the very least, they agreed a school pondering a possible engagement is imminent.
“There’s a way to say yes and do it,” industry source No. 1 said.
As for the athletic directors?
One said it won’t happen. Two said it’s all-but-inevitable. Another said it could happen, but it won’t look as simple as cutting a school a big check and getting a seat at the table.
So what would happen if college football’s newest super booster was the Saudi Arabian PIF?
“That’s a great question,” athletic director No. 1 said. “We’d make a lot of money.”
The NFL prohibits foreign ownership of its teams, but “ownership” in college football is a more complex concept. The boosters who write the biggest checks hold the biggest influence. And influence in college football costs less. Eight figures annually would, at most universities, make a new booster a program’s biggest.
“If an alum can provide $10 million a year to their alma mater, they have a strong influence on every aspect of what that university does, especially athletics,” industry source No. 1 said. “If they provide $10 million over any amount of time, you have a seat at the table for coach decisions, athletic director decisions, facilities decisions, deputy athletic director decisions, scheduling decisions.
“You can’t buy a college athletic department, but you can buy influence inside a college athletic department. If that’s for sale to the highest bidder, which the arms race in college sports is leading to, there could be a dilemma if the Saudi PIF wants to get involved in sports.”
The PIF has reportedly shown interest in other U.S. professional leagues, without mention of college athletics. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund just last week bought into the ownership of Washington’s NBA, NHL and WNBA teams. But if TV ratings tell the story, college football is America’s second-most popular sport. Unlike golf or F1, it doesn’t have international appeal. But it is inextricably tied to higher education in America, and Saudi Arabia gaining influence in that world could be attractive to a nation seeking to gain influence and shape its perception around the globe.
In the modern, largely lawless era of NIL in college football, could the PIF eventually desire to get involved in helping programs acquire talent?
In the past 18 months, collectives have taken hold as a recruiting superpower in college football, morphing NIL into de facto pay-for-play and routinely paying incoming recruits and transfers six figures (and sometimes seven figures) for their services. They fundraise and operate independently of schools but are built to help athletic departments thrive. That means keeping tight relationships with the schools they support.
“I know of some ADs that if a new donor showed up and had $10 million to give to the department, they would say, ‘Do not give it to us. Please give it to our collective.’I know that for a fact,” industry source No. 1 said.
Few collectives in college football can boast eight-figure budgets built to attract and retain players. That could change if Saudi Arabia’s fund chose to be involved and become the unexpected new version of Nike’s Phil Knight to Oregon or late oil magnate T. Boone Pickens to Oklahoma State.
“One-hundred million is a rounding error to the PIF. If you invest $20 million into a collective to help an institution buy or retain talent in football, that’s nothing to them,” athletic director No. 1 said.
At the very least, what are the odds an athletic department ends up with a choice to make in the next five to 10 years?
“It’s inevitable that this happens,” athletic director No. 1 said. “I’m going way above 50 percent, especially if you expand the timeline out over five to 10 years. There’s a very good chance a university will be faced with this, and maybe some will be proactive.”
As for what would happen when a school is presented with a moral quandary because of Saudi Arabia’s terrible human rights record? That’s more complicated.
How many schools deposit the check?
“Zero,” said athletic director No. 4.
“I think you’re going to have the opportunists out there who are in the Power 5 or part of the Group of 5 and aspire to be Power 5 who would take advantage of it, who don’t wear hard and fast values on their sleeve,” athletic director No. 1 said. “I think there’s a group of schools that would forever divorce their alumni base if they did something like that. I couldn’t see most of the privates going in that direction.
“It would take an institution in a state that was open to working with the Saudis, because you’d have to have politicians on board with it. But I think it’s possible, and it could change the dynamic out there.”
Industry source No. 1 agreed with that assessment.
Athletic director No. 3 disagreed.
“The potential reputational harm for the university is far greater than any figure,” he said.
But athletic director No. 1 argued that times have changed.
“The way people consume information, particularly as it has political overtones today, is different than it was 20 years ago,” he said. “People are at a point where they can rationalize pretty much anything.
An athletic department and its coaches and athletes, like the golfers who accepted the money to join the LIV Tour, would be thrust into the uncomfortable position of having to speak for the Saudis’ past atrocities. Golfer Phil Mickelson and others have not handled that well.
Industry source No. 1 said it could be more likely that a for-profit entity backed by venture capital from the Saudi PIF could give a donation, one that’s more palatable to resistance from campus or other notable alumni.
“That one buffer or layer, one degree removed from the PIF you could see in the next five years,” he said. “That seems on trend with the pace they’re getting involved with sports in the U.S.”
Or, if an athletic department didn’t want to accept a donation directly, it could funnel the money to its collective.
“If there was some restraint from accepting direct donations from a foreign public investment fund, they would not outright decline the offer, they would shift the donation into a collective so the funds would directly benefit the student-athletes that happen to choose to play in their market,” industry source No. 1 said. “It’s even cleaner.”
But if the Saudis’ dark past and present are too much to stomach in 2023, athletic director No. 3 said there’s another way for the Saudis to soften the blow for any future partners in college athletics.
A crisis in college athletics could change the math?
The AD argued the image hit right now wouldn’t be worth it, but there’s a scenario ahead where that arithmetic could change.
The PGA, he argued, folded because it faced an existential threat: It couldn’t keep up with rising purses to prevent players from jumping to LIV and the rising costs of legal fees for antitrust lawsuits from its sudden Saudi-funded competition.
In 2023, no college football program is facing an existential threat. But a large one looms for athletic departments: athletes becoming employees.
One of the few issues upon which both aisles of Congress are united is that the NCAA’s business model should be scrutinized. That might mean a future in which athletes get a cut of television revenues and earn a paycheck from their universities on top of their scholarships.
The economic model would drastically change. While athletic department revenues continue to rise, departments operate as nonprofits and reinvest revenues. Their costs could skyrocket overnight.
If athletes become employees, athletic departments could find money for athletes in revenue-producing sports, athletic director No. 3 said, but would likely move Olympic sports to club sports and no longer offer scholarships to those athletes whose sports operate at a deficit.
But what if the Saudis stepped in and helped fund one or many schools’ Olympic sports?
“That’s a way for them to get to college football. If they became a major supporter, ‘Hey, we gave $25 million to save soccer at these five schools.’ Now, they’ve got some major pull and they could get into college football,” athletic director No. 3 said.
Presented with that idea, athletic director No. 1 lauded it as a shrewd long-term play that would be effective in the PIF’s perceived ambition of reshaping the image of Saudi Arabia and its customs.
“That certainly accomplishes the mission of sportswashing for the Saudis,” he said. “The story the institution and PIF would put out is ‘Saudis step in and save sports. And women’s sports.'”
With economic pressure, schools looking for new boosters to provide additional resources in many cases might as well be searching for a dragon or griffin.
But one might live in Saudi Arabia.
“It all comes back to one thing: The departments are going to need money, and it’s going to look different and not be covered by the TV deals,” industry source No. 2 said. “They need to be thinking about new revenue streams in a creative way, and it’s going to be hard for some to say no if that opportunity presents itself.”
Just like the golfers who joined the LIV Tour, the first ones take the brunt of the criticism. But if that criticism also results in bigger budgets and bigger win totals, I suspect more would be attracted to the option.
This fall will be my 16th season covering college football, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: Never trust that the people in charge know what they’re doing. But if there’s two things I’ve learned, it’s that people will also do and overlook anything in the name of winning and money. An entity promising both is bound to be seductive.
If programs looking to elevate their statuses were able to use the funds to recruit rosters capable of making — or winning — the 12-team College Football Playoff, a paradigm shift could occur.
“How does that influence the Saudis’ leverage on institutions? Do more schools want to jump in with them? What dynamic does that create between the Saudis and higher education? And you’re in a time of virtually no regulation,” athletic director No. 1 said. “Now would be the time to jump.”
Said industry source No. 2: “Suddenly the biggest brands that said, ‘We don’t need it now,’ would then be saying, ‘Oh, s—, let’s talk.'”
